OVERTURE – an introductory piece setting the scene and tone for the action to come.

Larry’s body continued to feel out to him, wrong and yet right at the same time.

He peered closer into the slowly settling waters.

An enormous reptilian beast returned his gaze, haunched on two powerful hind legs complete with a long swaying spiked tail and unfurled bat-like wings. It sported armour-like scales and lethal-looking teeth and claws. It was, to all intents and purposes, a living, breathing dragon.

Another mythological creature? Where am I? Hades? I don’t recall anything about mermaids in the ancient Greek’s version of hell. That three-headed dog thing, sure, but definitely no mermaids.

Suddenly, Larry wished he’d paid more attention when the Clash of the Titans remake had been on T.V.

He stayed completely still. Something like that could dismember him in an instant.

The beast didn’t move.

Larry’s heart thumped frantically in his chest as he desperately tried to think of a means to escape. Maybe his odd snake-ally might intervene again.

He felt an increasing tightness in his chest. Larry turned his attention to his own body, trying in vain to recall the basics from a meditation class that he’d taken years ago when on holiday in Switzerland. He’d suffered high blood pressure for years, and despite recommendations from his doctor, had done almost nothing to address the problem. He’d always been like that: classic Ostrich mentality, if you don’t acknowledge the problem, it doesn’t exist. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, this was some form of perverse divine retribution.

A sudden and unexplained weariness led to Larry almost nodding off. As he corrected his posture, a strange thing happened.

The dragon had done exactly the same thing.

Was it mocking him? Could they do that? Did dragons have a dry sense of humour when stalking prey?

Its tail, which came into view, had a look of familiarity as it stirred lazily.

So that’s what the snake-thing was.

But why had it helped him? And why was it so reticent to communicate now?

Reluctantly, Larry concluded that there was no real option other than to communicate with the dragon directly. Given that there was no-one else around to witness an epic failure in man to dragon diplomacy, he did the only thing that occurred to his panicked mind: he gave the Dragon an emphatic thumbs up.

It responded in kind.

What the hell? Is this thing getting cute with me? Or does it just not understand and mimics actions? He wondered what would happen if he flipped it the bird.

In light of the seeming cease-fire with his titanic acquaintance, Larry decided to wash his face, given that he was still burning up from his encounter with his former HR team.

Two gigantic scaled claws plunged into the water. As Larry looked down at them, then followed his gaze all the way up and around his own body the terrible realisation finally registered with him.

He thrust his enormous reptilian head back and let forth a bellowing roar that echoed across the mountains.

The succulent tang of cooked meat from the mermaids permeated the air and Larry found himself having to control unwanted and alien desires.

A sharp stab of panic thrust at him. Where was his actual body? Had it been disposed of? Who had done this to him, and why?

Disgusted, he attempted to focus his attention on finding some answers: Larry took in the view beyond the grove. The vista was spectacular.

He stood at the top of a mountain, with a stream flowing down from the fountain pool to a valley below.

Far beyond in the distance lay a primordial looking forest.